Exhibition

The exhibition 111 Drawings was inspired by the publishing of the eponymous artist book upon the occasion of the artist's 75th birthday. The opening will host a conversation between Székely Sebestyén György and the artist.

Kancsura István (b. 1941, Budapest) is one of the outstanding representatives of the Cluj artistic scene, who nevertheless rarely discloses his works to the general public.

He finished his art studies at the Ion Andreescu Institute of Fine Arts. Together with painting, the development of his artistic career was determined by the modern currents in the arts of the 60's and 70's, above all, by kinetic art. Peculiar to his art is the fusion between the tradition of painting and the modern tendencies, in the form of a world of images determined by spiritual values which aesthetics. The drawings displayed at our exhibition – in which, frequently, an important place is occupied also by the written word – move freely within a space situated at the intersection of visual art, poetry and meditation.

As the artist himself has admitted, these drawings are neither sketches, nor rough outlines demonstrating individual talent of craftsmanship, but “spiritual telegrams”, “sublime cries” about life.

The artist book that features a collection of drawings created between 1960 and 2016 can be purchased at the Quadro Gallery.

Our exhibition compresses in time and space the exhibitions from the 1968-1972 period, yet, differing from them in nature and atmosphere. It is a compression in time, since the works in the field of painting, sculpture and graphic art were already exhibited, not in a single location, but in different exhibitions, and arranged in a roomy manner, in one row, at the Large Gallery (6 Martie / Iuliu Maniu Street). The space of our gallery does not allow for reproducing the specific character and atmosphere of the exhibitions that took place at that time, but the concurrent presentation of the exhibitions spanning over five years opens the path towards new interpretations and evaluations: juxtaposing different generations and styles may shed light upon what was considered acceptable in the respective period.

In order to reproduce the proportions and keep the accents we have relied on the catalogues from that period. The sample chosen by us puts up for display works by the most frequently seen participants at the “annual inspections”, taking into account the selection criteria employed by the jury committees of the respective age. In selecting the material for the exhibition we have tried, to the greatest extent, to present the works of those who participated in the county exhibitions at that time. Where this was not possible, we have chosen pieces that are similar from a stylistic and thematic perspective, which could therefore have been deemed “acceptable” in their turn.

In this mosaic-like mixture – under the state-supported umbrella of the Visual Artists’ Union – a number of remarkable works and masterpieces were born and became famous, which lately have gained the attention of important cultural institutions that transposed them into new contexts.

Knowledge of the original context allows us to contemplate the works of artists and the creative-artistic processes not in isolation, but rather in their interaction, opening the path towards reading their peculiar, Romanian and Eastern-European, substrata.

We would like to thank the artists, their families and heirs, Cluj-Napoca Art Muzeum, Barabás Miklós Guild, Györkös Mányi Albert Memorial House, Kolozsvár Társaság Association, Communitas Foundation, Minerva Foundation, collectors, art historians for their valuable contribution to this exhibition by lending works of art and information.